by A black and white drone about the size of a sofa cushion took off with a gentle whirr at the Hawthorne Police Department earlier this month, hovering and flapping back and forth several times before landing on a podium to applause.
A small audience and local television news crews had gathered for the unveiling of “Responder,” marketed as the first drone built specifically to respond to 911 calls by quickly arriving at scenes, sending live video and, if need, end medical matters. supplies.
The company behind the new drone, Seattle-based Brinc — a tech startup with a 24-year-old chief executive — has said it will “revolutionize the public safety landscape.” But law enforcement agencies across Southern California and the country already employ drones for a variety of purposes, including 911 response, and skeptics warn of the risk of “mission erosion” when the technology is weaponized or used for surveillance. .
Some Los Angeles activists have fought to limit police drone use, but Hawthorne’s acceptance of Brinc’s Response is a sign that some local authorities are continuing to embrace unmanned aerial vehicles despite the pushback and the price tag.
A contract with Brinc starts in the tens of thousands and can add up to millions of dollars, a spokesperson for the company said. The exact price depends on where the drones are used from and the number of launch sites, among other factors.
Hawthorne will be the first agency to test the dedicated 911 drones, with plans to have a small fleet in the air by the end of this year. They will be located at charging “nests” throughout the city, ready to deploy to a nearby emergency, Brinc said in a news release, which listed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as one of the company’s investors.
Many of the features cited in Responder overlap with the commercial drones currently used by law enforcement. One particular difference is the aesthetic, with Brinc adding red and blue lights and a horn to his craft.
The Santa Monica Police Department began using drones to respond to 911 calls in November 2021, said Sgt. Derek Leone, who oversees the department’s drone program. It gets its drones from the big manufacturer DJI, a Chinese owned company. Brinc emphasizes that its drones are made in America.
“Brinc is definitely trying to stand out for itself by being purposely built for many of the needs of law enforcement,” Leone said. “It’s an effort to tailor the drone specifically to our mission, but we work very efficiently with what we have.”
The Los Angeles Police Department first considered adding drones to its arsenal in 2014 when it received two from authorities in Seattle, where the public rejected them due to privacy concerns.
The ACLU of Southern California raised its own objections at the time, arguing that drones “can be used for full-blown surveillance that a helicopter never could — and that they could pose particular threats to privacy when deployed with other technology such as facial recognition software, infrared night. video cameras, or microphones to record personal conversations.”
The LAPD adopted regulations in 2019 that said drones cannot be equipped with weapons or facial recognition software.
Police say drones are useful for monitoring hostage situations or getting a clear view of a barricaded suspect. Drones can also help search for refugees or missing people, and can also provide firefighters with thermal readings.
At Brinc’s presentation in Hawthorne, company founder and CEO Blake Resnick played a video with a hypothetical example of a drone in action. A convenience store owner is shown calling 911 to report a potential robbery after seeing a man with a gun near the store. A drone arrives, and its camera captures footage showing that the suspected weapon is actually a firearm-shaped lighter, preventing a false alarm.
The Chula Vista Police Department in San Diego County was the first to use drones to respond to 911 calls in 2018 as part of a Federal Aviation Administration pilot program.
The officers sat drones on top of the roof of the police station and deployed them to 911 call centers when appropriate.
According to retired Chula Vista Police Chief Don Redmond — who now works for Brinc as the company’s vice president of advanced public safety projects — the department’s drones were going to emergency scenes in about half the time as police officers and also capturing records of crimes that were taking place. .
Chula Vista found that officers were able to send a drone to a 911 call to avoid sending an officer 25% of the time, according to Redmond.
“Across the country, everyone is struggling for team goals,” Redmond said. “This is an innovative way to keep police officers on priority calls.”
Police departments in Beverly Hills and Irvine also use drones to respond to 911 calls.
“The drone can get a call much faster than an officer can even in the best of circumstances and sometimes even clear the call,” said Santa Monica Police Lt. Erika Aklufi.
LAPD Stop Spying Coalition organizer Hamid Khan said his group fought to keep LAPD drones underground between 2014 and 2017, and there remains “some concern” about their continued use.
“They have the ability to do surveillance, collect data and do continuous monitoring,” Khan said.
While drones may only be intended for specific circumstances such as 911 calls, Khan worries that they will become more ubiquitous as time goes on, eventually leading to more dangerous applications such as because of “mission erosion”.
Most police drones are not armed, and Brinc says he will never enable his devices to use lethal force, but Khan pointed to North Dakota, which became the first state to legalize it. Armed police drones in 2015.
“They are claiming that they will never be armed, but we see how policies can change,” Khan said.
Some local officials shrugged at Brinc’s arrival in Hawthorne and the renewed debate it sparked.
Former LAPD SWAT officer John Incontro said drones have long been a powerful tool for law enforcement.
“They’re on the scene first and they’re able to orbit and see what’s going on,” said Incontro, who is now San Marino’s police chief. “It’s kind of like having a helicopter available.”
After hearing about Responder, Incontro asked what features set him off from the drones his department recently acquired and is preparing to use to scope out reports of suspicious activity at large estates in the area.
“I wasn’t aware of a company that is making drones specifically to respond to 911 calls,” he said. “I don’t know why that would be any more special than what I just described.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
